Pancakes . . . and Passion

We have a Saturday morning tradition in my house: pancakes.

Banana-Cinnamon-and-Honey pancakes, Blueberry-Pear pancakes, Apple-Walnut-and-Brown-Sugar pancakes, and the “Kitchen Sink” pancakes that include dregs from all the previous batches and anything else dad decides to throw in.

My kids love it. Well, they love the eating part. They hate the waiting part.

We adults are hardly better. Stop and go traffic drives us crazy. New technology sells because it’s faster. And sex? We rush after that, too. Why wait? Whether married or single, a lot hinges on how we answer this question.

Here’s the reality: Sex at its best requires waiting. I’ll give you two reasons why.

First, it just makes sense relationally. If a man can’t resist other women (or images of them), how does his wife feel when he expresses desire for her? Compare this to the wife whose husband says “no” to everyone else; how does she feel when her husband looks at her with that glint in his eye? The difference is night and day. The second man’s wife knows that his greatest desire is for her specifically, not for sex in general. It’s not that his sexual desire is absent, not at all. But it is subject to his greater desire to love her alone.

Women, don’t you desire this in your husband? Men, don’t you desire to be this kind of man?

Second, waiting reveals a dignity in sexuality that animalistic passion can’t. We’re created beings and, like all good works of art, our bodies (including sexuality) reveal something about the Artist who made us. God is not a sexual being, but could it be that His gift of sexuality expresses some aspect of how he yearns for us, with both passion and patience? Yes!

Sexual desire is a spark meant to point us to the fire of His passion.

Whether single or married, everyone has opportunities to wait. The ache of physical desire we feel echoes the ache we all have for something more, for eternity, for an ultimate Homecoming. We may be enticed by dwellings flickering with sexual license, but with His help, we set our hearts on a greater Dwelling, on the one true Light. Those who wait well stand as a reminder to us all that God’s good gift of sex is not the ceiling on pleasure–it is not the ultimate gift, but only a foreshadowing of it.

This Advent, we remember that Christ Himself, the incarnate One, knows the ache of waiting. We can join our waiting with His.

We wait now for Christmas, just days away. We wait for His redemptive work in specific areas of our lives. We wait for His answers to our long-prayed prayers.
We wait for His return. We wait.

What are you waiting for this Christmas? And how is the waiting going for you?

***

Hungry,
Josh

P.S. A friend introduced me to a fantastic commercial all about waiting. Take a look below.

Josh Glaser
Executive Director
josh@RegenerationMinistries.org